The Stories We Are: Excursions to Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and Sindh

Welcome to our podcast - “The Stories We Are: Excursions to Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Baluchistan and Sindh”. Our digital platform takes you to the rich tapestry of regional stories weaving the snowy North with the rugged South and spreading out from the alluring valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan to the motley streets of Punjab. These narratives celebrate the cultural nuances, fantasies, wisdom, morality and humour of the people of Pakistan. Interestingly, this podcast germinated in our Shakespearean Studies classroom. Our Baroque readings of Shakespeare made us see his dramatic space as Surplus! We noticed how his main characters were not centralised in his drama; instead, they were swayed amidst the profusion of his themes, the range of his decentralised characters, convergences of sub-plots, and variety of humour. This Surplus space created a Carnival for us where our space became coextensive with Shakespeare’s dramatic expanse. And, we found space for our oblique and detoured selves. It was time to infiltrate, and pour in our decentered and beyond the spotlight characters, plots, themes and humour to express the Carnivaleque in our Baroque world. We understood that Shakespeare and its readers breathe in the same Baroque world, which spatially extends the author to the reader, the dramatist to the audience, and the storyteller to the listener. This equilibrium of relationships rests on imperfection, and asymmetry of the early-modern and post-modern spatiality. This is not another effort to indigenise Shakespeare; it is to celebrate the plurality of our spaces, the oscillation of our characters, themes, plots, which have always existed here and there, and spatially everywhere.

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Episodes

Sunday Aug 06, 2023

The Stories We Are: Excursions to Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and Sindh

Episodes

Loyalty

The Monster and its Killer

Many Hands Make Light Work

Story of Shahdad and Mehnaz

Momin Khan and Shireenay

Obedience Has a Reward

Fragrance of Knowledge

Umar Marvi

The Talking Apple

Love is Sweeter than Salt

Princess in Disguise